Tutorials on EdgeVPN

Install EdgeVPN

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

EdgeVPN is a single statically compiled binary with no runtime dependencies. Pick whichever route suits the machine; if you just want the shortest path to a running network, take the install script and carry on to your first network.

Install script

The repository ships an installer at install.sh:

curl -sfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mudler/edgevpn/master/install.sh | sh

It is Linux only — it aborts on any other platform. What it does:

Detects the architecture (x86_64, arm64, armv6, i386) and looks up the latest release tag from the GitHub API.
Downloads the matching release archive and installs the edgevpn binary into /usr/local/bin, using sudo when not running as root. If /usr/local/bin is not writable and /opt/bin already exists, it uses /opt/bin instead; it will not create that directory.
Writes a service unit: a systemd template unit /etc/systemd/system/edgevpn@.service if systemd is present, or /etc/init.d/edgevpn under OpenRC.

The script installs the unit but does not enable or start anything, so nothing runs until you ask it to.

Your first network

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Get EdgeVPN

Prerequisites: No dependencies. EdgeVPN releases are statically compiled.

On Linux, the quickest way is the install script:

curl -sfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mudler/edgevpn/master/install.sh | sh

Release archives, Homebrew, the container image and building from source are all covered in Install EdgeVPN.

Creating Your First VPN

Let’s create our first vpn now and start it:

$> EDGEVPNTOKEN=$(edgevpn -b -g)
$> edgevpn --dhcp --api

That’s it!

You can now access the web interface on http://localhost:8080.

To join new nodes in the network, simply copy the EDGEVPNTOKEN and use it to start edgevpn in other nodes:

Share a service between two hosts

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In this tutorial you will take a TCP service running on one machine — we will use an SSH server, but anything that speaks TCP works — and reach it from a second machine somewhere else, over EdgeVPN.

Nothing here brings up a VPN interface, so you do not need root on either host.

You will need:

Two hosts, A and B, that can both reach the internet. They do not need to see each other, and neither needs a public IP.
edgevpn installed on both. See your first network if you have not installed it yet.
Something listening on a TCP port on host A. We assume sshd on 127.0.0.1:22.

If you already know the shape of this and just want the commands, read Tunnel TCP services instead.

A network-decentralized k3s test cluster

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s see a practical example, you are developing something for kubernetes and you want to try a multi-node setup, but you have machines available that are only behind NAT (pity!) and you would really like to leverage HW.

If you are not really interested in network performance (again, that’s for development purposes only!) then you could use edgevpn + k3s in this way:

Generate edgevpn config: edgevpn -g > vpn.yaml
Start the vpn: